


Beauty

by schizoauthoress



Category: The Munsters
Genre: Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Self-Esteem Issues, Sister-Sister Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 15:04:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11084088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schizoauthoress/pseuds/schizoauthoress
Summary: Maybe Mother would have kept her if she was beautiful...[Marilyn Munster being introspective.]





	Beauty

Marilyn Munster searches her reflection for beauty.

The boys try to be kind, but they can never stand her homeliness for long. If she dwells too much on how many beaus have fled the family home, she'd never have the courage to accept a date again.

She is lucky that Grandpa Dracula likes her, and that Aunt Lily is kind. She is lucky that Uncle Herman is willing to let her stay with them, and that he doesn't mind her using his last name when they came to America. 

Nor does she mind the attempts to change her appearance that Grandpa sometimes comes up with. She would love to be as pretty as Aunt Lily, if she could.

Marilyn pinches her rosy cheeks to watch the blood drain from the flesh held between her fingers. How she wishes she could hold on to that lovely, waxen paleness! But the rosiness floods back even worse over her smooth and wartless skin afterwards, so she stops. 

She sighs at the silly flaxen strands of her hair -- she wishes it would come in darker, because black hair might at least wash out her complexion. But she knows better than to attempt a dye job. Every concoction -- magical or mundane -- that Mother ever applied to her head had made Marilyn break out in a painful rash.

Marilyn winces at the thought of her mother. She has so few good memories associated with that woman.

****

At the end of her patience, all avenues exhausted, Mother had been cruel. She mocked the ugliness so obvious in Marilyn -- especially her pink lips and rosy cheeks -- because the Dracula sisters were such famous beauties. To produce such an ugly girl reflected poorly on Mother.

"You don't even have the decency to be cursed into being this hideous!" was a common complaint from Mother in those days.

In the end, the mockery stopped when Marilyn's little sister -- a proper little ghoul with a pallid complexion and blood red eyes -- was born. All of Mother's attention went to caring for and doting upon her prettier child. Marilyn can't be angry at the girl, either -- she never could. Sophie is a dear child, never put off by the ugly older sister fate had seen fit to provide, and quite loving. 

There were nights when Sophie's hunts for human blood had been unsuccessful, especially when the vampire girl was young. Mother had never been good at playing the soft little innocent when it came to luring prey, and was not a good teacher on that tactic. On those nights, Marilyn would feel especially bad that she wasn't very ghoulish, and couldn't pick up her sister's slack.

Such thoughts never seemed to occur to Sophie. She would come up to Marilyn's room after a bad hunt, with a book and a smile, and ask to have a story read to her. The two sisters would curl up on the cushions scattered across the broad sill of Marilyn's oriel window, and Marilyn would read aloud. Sometimes, Sophie would be hungry enough that she'd start idly nibbling on Marilyn's page-turning hand. 

And at those times, Marilyn would offer to let Sophie bite her wrist. It wasn't much, really, compared to what Marilyn should have been able to provide for her little sister, but it was all she had. 

Although Marilyn would have been happy to let Sophie feed from her occasionally, Mother never liked the idea.

Mother's complaints started again, whenever she saw Sophie spending what she deemed "too much" time with Marilyn. Sometimes Marilyn thought she might believe that the ugliness was contagious. 

It seemed that the only thing to please Mother would be if Marilyn left. When Grandpa insisted that Marilyn come live with him, Mother had been only too eager to agree.

Sophie, by contrast, had thrown the worst fit, wailing inconsolably no matter how Marilyn had tried to explain -- no, it wasn't that she didn't love Sophie; no, she wasn't leaving forever. She didn't want to bring up the coldness that Mother treated her with, because Mother's relationship with Sophie was good.

"I'll write," Marilyn told her sister, hardly audible to her own ears over Sophie's blood-curdling shrieks, "I'll write every day!" When even that failed to elicit any other response, Marilyn sighed and picked up her suitcase. She turned to go...

And that was when Sophie bit her on the ankle -- hard. Those razor-sharp fangs ground into Marilyn's flesh, and when Sophie tugged just a little, the pain drove Marilyn to fall. She sprawled on the stone foyer while Mother screamed and scolded.

Grandpa howled with laughter over his "little ankle-biter", even as he helped Mother pry loose Sophie's jaws. Marilyn drew her wounded leg away as soon as Sophie released her, and Mother swept the younger girl away.

(Marilyn had been smiling as she left, limping as she followed Grandpa, and trailing blood all over Mother's third most expensive Persian rug.)

****

Unlike the other vampire bites that Marilyn has gotten, this particular one from Sophie healed over strangely. The ragged fang marks form an uneven, knobbly scar -- some parts purple-red as a fresh bruise, and others white like melted wax. Marilyn feels it is the prettiest part of her, even moreso because it was inflicted out of her little sister's love. (And rage, but Marilyn doesn't mind that either.)

When she turns away from the mirror, Marilyn notices that someone brought today's mail up to her room. One of the envelopes has the Westbury College crest on it. The other one is plain and cream-colored, emblazoned with several postmarks, and she recognizes the handwriting that is scrawled across the front. 

Marilyn smiles, and picks up her bone-handled antique paper knife to slit open Sophie's latest letter. 

At least Sophie loves her, even if she is ugly.


End file.
